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Enhanced Carnivore To Crack Encryption Via Virus
suqur writes: "MSNBC has a story about a new Carnivore feature, dubbed 'Magic Lantern,' which arrives on a victim's computer in the form of a virus through email or well-known vulnerabilities. Magic Lantern uses keylogging to extract keys typed in, and sends them off to the FBI. This is similar to a story reported on previously, but taken one step further, allowing computers to be compromised remotely."
In other news today, the FBI was arrested en masse for violating numerous newly legislated anti-terrorist laws prohibiting compromising remote computers...
a) The FBI kicks in your door and installs Outlook
b) You always open email with the subject "Snow White and the 7 FBI Agents"
c) You run the attachment called "FBILOVESYOU.VBS" (and you run Windows, Outlook, etc)
Blah, dumb communist FBI
Abuse my rationalization of rhetoric as either metaphor or monotomy.
Thanks to the FBI, a whole new market is now being pushed into exploring the world of alternative operating systems.
Talk about a boon to the Open Source movement! Show the people (not just the bad guys) that Microsoft's numerous vulnerabilities can be used by Big Brother to monitor them. I can't think of a better way to boost Linux distro sales.
The first thing that comes to mind is a flagrant violation of the DCMA.
:P. That was easy to get around.
How does the government expect to work around this one? There are so many things that can go wrong...
1. Probably OS-dependent. Remember: virii for one platform (i.e., Win) will probably not work for others. That was not hard to get around
2. Human link involved. This virus will presumably be propagated via email, or some other form of trojan. Those who tend to use encryption tend to block this type of thing from happening to their machine anyway. Yet another reason not to open email/attachments from an addresser named "CIA"
3. Network link involved. Those who use encryption are usually savvy enough to detect extra packets flying from their machine to some unknown address, which would easily be identified in a reverse-lookup.
My goodness, they are getting desperate, aren't they.
From: Bill@Slashdot.org
To: Fred@Slashdot.org
Subject: Magic Lantern.doc.pif
Hi! How are you?
I send you this file in order to have your advice.
See you later. Thanks
-- Dan
Better yet, rename it 'Quake', so you'll get better 3D acceleration for your PGP.
Are there any cases involving damage done to personal property in eavesdropping operations? That is, legal taps? Any lawyers here? I gotta imagine that this would be a very very dangerous thing for the government to get into. Not only could it cause damage to personal property, but if the suspect is smart enough to encrypt their stuff, they're going to be smart enough to know when they've been h4x0red by an email virus.
This story makes a lot more sense if you remove every reference to "our sources" and replace it with "my little brother." I believe *that*.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Note to self: build auto-gpg-encryption into xP.
Don't forget that it'd better be on a machine that you wrote the BIOS for. Also in a faraday cage, powered by batteries.
Of course, anyone who would be vulnerabe to this is either a moron or doesn't feel that they have anything to hide, so it seems kind of pointless.
Of course, the truely paranoid communicate with their computer using morse code with their space bar and scroll lock LED. I can see it now:
Head of Investigation: "What have we got from the J Random Hacker log file?"
Computer Specialist: "84,365,928 spaces, sir"
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
After it's renamed and loaded with the ATI drivers, PGP will encrypt things twice as fast, but side-by-side inspection will reveal it's algorithm to have switched to XOR.
"It obviously couldn't be cross-platform either."
Kind of makes one pine for elm.
If VISTA is the answer, you didn't understand the question
I received an email with the subject "Good Times", and I opened it. My browser popped open, and sent me to a site that had the headline, "See what really happens 'behind closed doors' when John Ashcroft and George Bush get together." My firewall picked up something weird, but I don't know anything about that, because I was already getting ready to format my disk.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Quick! Everyone install this trojan and start typing as much as possible... Maybe we can /. the carnivore box :)
Obviously, speed is of the essence
(Note: for backround info on this net meme - look here.
[Insert pithy quote here]
AN 1 Nov 20 agent213@fbi.gov (335) Hot Porn!
[enter]
Attachment: sexypix.htm.exe
Damn, I can't run it.
-Legion
Hmm, you could also do something tricky like putting said BigFile on read only media (cdrom, dvd, or maybe a removeable HD or HD with the read-only jumper soldered closed). Then take the media with you and keep data files on removeable media.
Install tamper-evident seals all over everything, install a decoy system, and a hidden silent intrusion detection system (all rather trivial to do really).
Then reboot before entering a passphrase to foil network based attacks, and shut down and take all media with you when you leave. When the FBI breaks in to physically install a keylogger, they'll mistakenly bug the decoy system. If they figure that out, they'll find the tamper evident seals, and may have to come back later with duplicates. If they can circumvent those, they'll have tripped the silent intrusion detection system and been caught on hidden video camera, which will page you so you can check your house via the 802.11 link to your neighbors cable modem. If necessary you can then use your bluetooth system to detonate stun gernaids and flood the house with anestetic gas.
Anyway, you'll have been alerted to their poking around.
-
Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.
i guess some todo lists are going to expand...
7.30 get up
8.00 go to work
8.02 check email
8.03 reverse engineer fbi trojan
8.10 spy on everybody an his mother
.
.
.
18.30 be happy to be a l33t FB1 5upp0rt3d ha>0r
nice...
How many straws, America? How many?
Just one more! I promise.
"And like that
* Code Red style propagation allows for very large scale deployment
* Data sharing with DMV
* Valutraq - advertising based on what is found on a subject's system.
* Automatic Ministry Of Love dispatch in the event of Thought Crime (TM)
* Tracking in devices attached to mobile phones with GPS support
It's a great time to be alive.